Palleted Automated Transportation
Technologies

While there are no known projects currently
underway that are aimed at the development of palleted
automated transportation technologies for use in meeting
urban mobility needs, this topic keeps coming up, over and
over again, in conversations and discussions about how to
tame the automobile. Few people seem to know that it has been
examined quite extensively by several persons during the past
25 years.

One of these people is David Gordon Wilson, a retired
(1994) Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He is the
author of two papers that deal with this topic in some
detail. Persons who wish to work on the development of such a
technology should definitely read these papers.

A
brief description of some of the work on Palleted
Automated Transportation (PAT) at MIT is provided along with
several illustrations of the PAT concepts that were designed
at MIT.

Some people think that the
Automated Highway System should provide only for the
movement of automated pallets that carry conventional autos
from place to place - thereby eliminating the problem of
inspecting each vehicle before allowing it to be used on an
automated highway. In such a "dual-mode"system, the
autos would be driven on and off the pallets and only the
pallets themselves would have to be maintained and certified
periodically for use on the automated highway. One such
system, called the
Integrated Transportation System , has been
conceptualized in some detail and information about it is
available at this Web site

The citations for the two papers by Professor D.G.
Wilson are as follows:

Abstracts of these papers are provided. Both are
likely to be available in libraries of moderate size or they
can be obtained from most any library by using interlibrary
loan procedures.

Persons who know of currently active palleted
transportation projects are urged to contact Professor J.
Schneider at
jbs@u.washington.edu so information about them can be
added to this web site. Professor David Gordon Wilson can be
reached via e-mail at MIT at
dgwilson@mit.edu His other contact info is as follows:
Ph: (781) 729 2203; fax: (617) 258 0485; smail: D.G. Wilson,
MIT Mechanical Engineering, Room 3-455, Cambridge, MA
02139